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Hello IÄôm Karla Macias and we are back again for another
episode of the Best Docs Network featuring Forest Park Medical
Center Austin. Forest Park Medical Center is one of the top
medical centers in all of Texas where iÄôs your destination to
better health. In the next 30 minutes wÄôre going to take a
look at what Forest Park Medical Center is and all the doctors
that are a part of this prestigious group, like our
first doctor, breast reconstruction specialist, Dr.
Ned Snyder. I went in for a regular mammogram just a yearly
thing and I had a DCIS in my right breast diagnosed the day
after Christmas. Some mutual friends said oh you know we have
a doctor whÄôs you know supposed to be the best in his
field and I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know Äôll just give
him a call. And this gentleman, Dr. Snyder, took so much time
with me, spent the day after Christmas on the phone with me
walking me through all the different options and what my
diagnosis really meant and you know not to freak out and this
was really doable and I felt so confident after I spoke to him.
Dr. Snyder really won me over with the fact that he was so
willing to give his personal family time to me when I was in
a state of crisis. But I will say when I started researching
all the local doctors and you know really seeing what my
options were thatÄôs when I realized what a rock star Dr.
Snyder is, you know just from every angle people were praising
him. So Kate had a breast cancer and elected to have bilateral
mastectomies. She had reconstruction then with
bilateral DIEP flaps or D.I.E.P. flaps which are flaps where we
use tissue from the abdomen, skin and fat from the abdomen.
We take a portion of the blood supply out of the muscle that
sits below that skin and fat, we disconnect it from the abdomen
and then reconnect those blood vessels in the chest, so weÄôre
making a breast out of what a breast is, skin and fat and it's
100 percent her own tissue. What happens, itÄôs actually pretty
intense and iÄôs super science. ItÄôs a 17 hour
surgery. The first surgery is done by your surgeon not the
plastic surgeon so that would not be Dr. Snyder and thaÄôs
just the mastectomy, the removal of the ***. And then the
second surgery and the mastectomy is the 2 hour
surgery, the rest of the 15 hours is him using my own fat
tissue to reconstruct the breast, reconstruct all the
blood vessels, itÄôs pretty intense stuff. When we use your
own tissue, iÄôs something thaÄôs going to age with you
like normal tissue like normal *** and wonÄôt require
maintenance per se over the course of your lifetime. Once
youÄôre reconstructed itÄôs yours and iÄôs yours to keep.
It feels great to 4 or 5 months later say IÄôm done, I feel
great, Äôm active, IÄôm back with my family. IÄôs exactly
where I want to be. DonÄôt skip breakfast. Fiber in the morning
means less hunger in the afternoon when you most likely
feel tired and gorge yourself on sugar. An early start on eating
also keeps your metabolism more active throughout the day.
Breakfast eaters are thinner than people who just rush out
the door. Well we are from Boliva. I came two and a half
years ago. My father and my mother they started to see
something strange with my baby girl. I think the very first
time that I noticed and I was the one that really noticed
there may be an issue was when I first held her in Boliva. She
was just a few weeks old. I just noted that she didnÄôt appear
to be responding to noise and sounds around. I was thinking
that she was okay, that nothing was wrong, maybe shÄôs
distracted, I donÄôt know. When they told us that she wasÄôt
listening, it was hard because I want she can listen to me or she
can listen herself so sometimes iÄôs frustrating to talk to
the baby or you want to teach her something and you canÄôt
because she cannot listen. Well we first contacted Dr. Peters in
Dallas Hearing Institute then we knew that he was the president
of the foundation, of Dallas Hearing Foundation and we talked
to him and they started looking for a device for Mia and Äôm
glad that they found the right one and hopefully and with
GodÄôs help itÄôs going to work good, itÄôs going to work
good. MED EL along with the Dallas Hearing Foundation we
share a commitment to the hearing loss community and when
the Dallas Hearing Foundation approached MED EL we thought
this was an ideal situation to kind of help out a family and so
we put them into our grant process. And as the patient goes
through the grant process, you know Mia and her family were
approved. Mia was born with profound hearing loss and that
means that hearing aids were not able to give her enough hearing.
So, the only way she would gain adequate hearing in order to
develop speech and language, oral language, would be to have
a cochlear implant. So today we placed a surgical implant that
is meant to stimulate the hearing nerves that are there
but just not working. And it will stimulate those nerves and
produce for her a sense of hearing. We test the implant and
determine during surgery that she is responding to the
implant. We actually do not turn it on for three weeks. We want
to let her incision heal so we wonÄôt turn it on for three
weeks. So sheÄôs just going to have like any typical ear
surgery, have some recovery time and some discomfort. But three
weeks from now is when weÄôll bring them back to our office
and actually activate the implant. Well, for her itÄôs
going to be a big difference from not hearing to hearing is a
big change. She was living happy without hearing and now hearing
sheÄôs going to be happier, thaÄôs why wÄôre here.
ThaÄôs why wÄôre in America, in Dallas in this big hospital,
good hospital, with the best devices that she can get. Thank
you Dallas Hearing Center, thank you Forest Park Medical Center,
thank you Dr. Peters, thank you Linda, Debbie, all of them. Did
you know that Forest Park Medical Center was voted as one
of the top 100 places to work in the Dallas, Fort Worth area?
Forest Park Medical Center received this honor for the
second year in a row. To find any of the doctors that you see
on todaÄôs show nearest you, logon to our website,
bestdocsnetwork.com and click on that Forest Park Medical Center
tab. Up next weÄôre going to talk to internal medicine
doctor, Dr. Terry Chambless. High cholesterol is another one
of our big 4 risk factors for arterial disease and if the
cholesterol is too high it will actually diffuse into the wall
of our arteries and thaÄôs not a good thing. High cholesterol
really comes from two places. We either eat it or we genetically
make it and a lot of people do both. For years I went for a
yearly physica, I think starting in my thirties. At the time when
my cholesterol was noticeably higher my doctors you know kept
saying you know you need to be put on some type of medication
and I just couldnÄôt. I thought this is too young to start
taking any types of medications. And the treatment for that
really needs to be centered around going after dietary
factors and treatment for that and genetic overproduction and
treatment for that and weÄôve got great medications for both
of those. When he got my numbers after all my blood work, my
physical, Dr. Chambless told me that I really needed to bring
down. The only way would be medication but he, Dr.
Chambless, had decided to start me on a very low dose and just
see if that would adjust and it did for a while but then he had
to boost it. I mean iÄôs just, the numbers are incredible now.
BonniÄôs an amazing lady. When she first came to see me her
cholesterol was high and I really think her prior
physicians were not being aggressive enough in getting her
cholesterol down. She humored me and she let me start her on
medication and her numbers have come down and sheÄôs got a
bright future ahead of her. We have a lot of data out there
that show if we get our numbers low enough especially with the
LDL cholesterol that we can keep fat from building up in the wall
of the arteries and thaÄôs what I hope for Bonnie. Dr.
Chambless really took the time and discussed things with me
that no other doctor had ever done. Everything that Dr.
ChamblessÄôs staff does I feel it just couldÄôt be any
better. Brenda has a question for Dr. David Cuellar. Are
kidney stones preventable? 90 percent of kidney stones are
preventable. It typically takes some testing, a 24 hour urine
collection, some blood work to figure out which of the 10 or so
reasons is that patients reason but once we figure that out we
can prevent stones 90 percent of the time so they doÄôt come
back either by changing that persons diet or putting them on
a medication or just having them drink more water and less soda.
, Best Docs Network featuring Forest Park Medical Center is
your destination to better health. What it means for Forest
Park to be a part of the Austin community, weÄôre just really
excited to be here. We feel very honored that surgeons have asked
us to be a part of the Austin community. ItÄôs a great
opportunity for the surgeons, iÄôs a great opportunity for
the patients in the North Austin medical community. What makes
Forest Park different from other hospitals in the Austin area and
even throughout the U.S. is that wÄôre a truly physician owned
hospital. We are governed by the physicians who are the majority
owners so the physicians have a lot of say so in the day to day
operations of the hospital, from the medical staff to the OR to
the equipment that they want to have as part of their hospital
that they own. We have three existing hospitals that are open
right now and three under development. TheyÄôre all truly
unique. Every hospital serves the physicians that are
participating in the hospital. Every community has a different
need and so we will serve what Austin needs and what our
surgeons need. Each hospital is like a 5 star hotel so that when
a patient and a family member walks into the hospital you
really doÄôt think that youÄôre in a hospital. IÄôs
not a cold, sterile environment. IÄôs very warming, you feel
comfortable there. The patients rooms are very spacious,
theÄôre very beautiful. Some of the hospital rooms actually
have a VIP suite attached to the patient room. That room has a
flat screen TV, a refrigerator, a pull out bed so family can
stay overnight. The caliber of physicians that we have at
Forest Park we think are some of the best of the best that Austin
has to offer to patients. The estimated number of physician
partners we have right now, we have 70 in the partnership. We
have 12 different specialties involved in our specialty mix.
We hope to add additional partners in the near future as
well as additional specialties. We bring the best surgeons to
our hospitals, we have the best staff, we have the best service.
We have, we feel like the best hospital that Austin will have.
Forest Park Medical Center is truly one of a kind. Dr. Mason
Jones is a family physician here in the Austin area. Now let's
hear about his methods on concierge medicine. Our mantra
is basically to spoil the patients at every encounter.
Whenever they call us we pick up the phone, therÄôs no sort of
voice mail that you get stuck in and which extension do I pick or
any of that stuff. You call us we pick up the phone
immediately. We all have, all of our patients have our cell phone
numbers so they can call us anytime 24, 7 always on call
which some folks think may be kind of onerous but iÄôs
really not. The people that gravitate to us are just high
quality people who expect a certain level of care and
thaÄôs what we provide. LetÄôs talk about grief and
depression, thereÄôs a big difference. We all have grief,
we lose a favorite animal, we lose a loved one, we lose a job.
These are things you grieve over. Depression is a whole
other thing, thatÄôs a chemical abnormality in the brain. It
often needs medication to get well. Grief can lead into
depression also so itÄôs important to know the difference
and there are several ways to know the difference. Number one,
grief tends to be more short lived. It may last a few weeks,
a few months and in rare cases a years and depression tends to
last longer, more along the range of months and years. Also
and this is the most important factor, grief tends to
progressively improve. You get a little better every few weeks,
every few months. You can look back and see that youÄôre
improving. Depression doesnÄôt act that way, it tends to stay
the same, stay bad and get worse. You feel anhedonia which
means the lack of joy. If you have grief, you need time, you
need help, you may need support groups. But if you have
depression, you may need medication. Try to tell the
difference and search for help. I think Forest Park in Austin is
going to be a great, great thing. ItÄôs a great excellent
medical facility. The doctors involved with it are going to be
great. ItÄôs going to be a very great opportunity for the
patient to have another choice in something that is going to be
geared to not only giving them excellent healthcare but a great
medical experience. IÄôm excited about Forest Park, I
think iÄôs going to be a terrific asset to the Austin
community in that iÄôs going to be a new hospital of a new
type. IÄôs going to be doctor managed and driven and will be
focused on taking care of patients and focused on the best
outcomes and the best patient care. Medicine is about the
doctor and the patient. We want to have perfectly open
communication with patients and you know I think thatÄôs what
Forest Park is all about. IÄôs giving the patient a really
excellent experience and excellent healthcare all at the
same time. Äôm really excited about joining the Forest Park
family. I think that medical care should be between doctors
and their patients and Äôm really excited about being
involved with a hospital thaÄôs run by doctors. A lot
of times physicians have ideas about what could be done
differently to make it a better experience for the patient or a
less costly experience for the hospital but oftentimes wÄôre
not able to make those changes and so I wanted to be able to
make those changes since this would be a physician controlled
hospital. IÄôve had the pleasure of actually doing some
surgeries in the Dallas Forest Park. IÄôs a beautiful
facility and itÄôs extremely well run. Again IÄôm a surgeon
so what happens in the ORÄôs is important to me and the OÄôs
were very well staffed, very well stocked and ran like a
clock, it was perfect. The other thing about Forest Park is that
based on it being physician controlled and based on its size
it is better able to adapt and evolve as things change because
in medicine things are always changing and if you donÄôt
adapt and evolve quickly then what yoÄôre doing tends to not
be the standard of care anymore and so thatÄôs another reason I
was so interested in Forest Park. IÄôm excited about Forest
Park. IÄôs my honor to be associated with them. I have
been here in Round Rock for a long time and we have missed a
hospital like this. I think the whole concept of Forest Park is
centered around improved patient care and actually saving them
money by reducing the administrative cost that exists
at other hospitals. This is a good thing for Austin and iÄôs
a good thing for the doctors and iÄôs a good thing for medical
care. For more information on Forest Park Medical Center or
any of their doctors, logon to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com
and click on that Forest Park Medical Center tab. Up next
wÄôre going to talk to Dr. Tomas Antonini as he tells us
about pelvic organ prolapse. I was having difficulty urinating.
It didnÄôt want to flow evenly. It would stop and start and I
would have to reposition myself to get the urine to get my
bladder to empty. When I sat down there felt like there was a
lump there. I had difficulty sitting, I would have to shift
my body so that the lump would actually go back up into the
passage. Pelvic organ prolapse is a common condition where one
of the female organs are dropping through the *** such
as a dropped bladder or a dropped *** or a dropped
uterus. It is ultimately a form of a hernia that is happening
through the ***. I could feel the lump when I was walking or
trying to sit and it was getting larger and larger. The most
common organs to prolapse through the pelvic floor are the
bladder what we call cystoceles or the ***, theyÄôre called
rectoceles and then on top of the *** we can have the
prolapse of the uterus or the prolapse of the top of the
*** after the patient had a hysterectomy before. Dr.
Antonini explained to me that many women after having
childbirth and getting older our muscles are getting weaker and
sometimes iÄôs also an inherited factor which I was
surprised to learn. For non-surgical treatments usually
we can resort to pelvic floor physical therapy or the use of
different devices usually called pessaries. For the ultimate
treatment usually we resort to surgery. There are multiple
different operations and techniques that can be used to
surgically correct pelvic organ prolapse. Dr. Antonini gave me
treatment options, have the surgery and rectify the problem
or just go on as I was going on which was very uncomfortable. I
chose the surgery. Having this procedure done by Dr. Antonini
has been absolutely wonderful. It makes me feel like a new
person. I feel wonderful, I feel wonderful. Is your energy
lacking? Though it may be the last thing you feel like doing
when yoÄôre tired, exercise. Even a brisk walk can be more
effective than a nap or a cup of coffee at fighting fatigue. One
great thing about Forest Park is that they include the dining
aspect or the food aspect for our patient care. Not only do
they have great dieticians on site to make sure that the
dietary needs are met for the patients but they also consider
the patients families needs as well. LetÄôs face it, sometimes
youÄôre in the hospital, this facility, six or seven hours if
not longer, sometimes overnight, sometimes two or three days and
iÄôs not the typical food. We do everything from scratch which
means that we do everything from the starting point all the way
to the finished product. We do pork tenderloin, we do roasted
chickens, we do gourmet pizzas. We even do some things like
grandmaÄôs meatloaf but everythinÄôs made from
scratch. We follow recipes, nothing comes out of a can. Our
sauces are all made from scratch. When you walk into our
dining facility, our dining facility here is named Ca©
114, it feels like a real caf©. You donÄôt walk into it and
iÄôs the oh type of tray lined service here, every single day
the menu changes. So for example one day you may have a carving
station with a prime rib on it. The next day on that carving
station it may be a baked potato bar and the plate itself is a
work of art. ItÄôs just not something thaÄôs piled on the
plate and sent to the guest or sent to the patient. ItÄôs a
work of art because you know you may not always come in here
where youÄôre just on a clear liquid diet, you can actually
have surgery where you can eat regular food. So we have to take
those cases and we want them to feel like you know what this is
unbelievable, this is not hospital food. We donÄôt ever
want to be stereotyped or categorized as hospital food. We
are a caf© dining facility and you can get fresh grilled
salmon, we have fresh tuna here, we have a fish of the week. We
have grilled pork chops you can get, grilled chicken. Along with
that you can have that grilled, make your salad, give it to one
of my grill cooks and wÄôll put it on the salad for you. It
really starts with Chef Jason Douglas. This guy is absolutely
amazing when it comes to food. He is truly an artist when it
comes to the culinary aspect of it. He has an eye for making
your food look so pretty and edible at the same time that you
donÄôt want to touch it because it looks so great. ThatÄôs one
element about dining service I donÄôt have to worry about
because I know when hÄôs there that the guests, our patients
are going to get the absolute best that he has to offer every
single day. So what we try to do is we try to be innovative with
our food, very cost effective, but most importantly want a
great quality of food. I have this saying that if iÄôs not
done in the spirit of excellence, we woÄôt serve it.
From staff to surgeons, from technology to technique, Forest
Park Medical Center Austin is your destination to better
health. Not long ago at Forest Park Medical Center, Mia had
surgery to help her hear. Now letÄôs watch Mia hear for the
very first time. Well today Mia is going to get her cochlear
implant activation and she will start hearing, she will start
hearing today and wÄôre very happy about it. We were shaking
and too excited for everything today. I know it wasnÄôt like a
huge thing but for her it was something different. Now the
device is attached and within a few moments you see responses
from Mia that youÄôve never seen. You know, you can tell
something new is happening. She would have never been able to
hear and now she can and will. IÄôs overwhelming, iÄôs
overwhelming. She was happy, jumping and running and it looks
like she doesÄôt have anything there. We were so excited and so
worried about her for not dropping the device but she will
do it we know so we just want the best for her. It has been a
journey and a long and a short one at the same time. Waiting,
praying, wishing and some days losing hope. ItÄôs an amazing
journey and now iÄôs just begun. ItÄôs going to take some
time for her to start to process. ItÄôs all about the
brain processing information. IÄôs going to take her time to
realize, oh that was the door knock, that was the door bell,
thaÄôs mommyÄôs phone, thaÄôs mommyÄôs voice,
thaÄôs daddyÄôs voice. ItÄôs going to all take time. Just
like a normal hearing infant. A normal hearing infant is born
hearing perfectly but they donÄôt understand. Maybe 6
months, maybe 8 months they start to respond to their name.
They might start to respond to the dogÄôs name. So she has to
go through the same developmental stages of hearing
and learning to talk that a normal child goes through and
that takes months and years. IÄôs going to be a real
challenge for us but we are going to practice and we are
going to help her and teach her. There is no way to say thank you
enough, thereÄôs no way to repay it other than we will be
your ambassador, I can tell you that and weÄôll try to make the
best out of it for Mia and watch her develop and wÄôre just so
thankful. Everyone is changing her life. IÄôs a new beginning
for her, itÄôs like a newborn but now she can really start to
listen and changing that part in her life. Linda has a question
for Dr. Paul John. When does my daughter need her first pap
smear? The rules have changed on that actually in favor of the
young women because we used to make them have pap smears at a
much earlier age. The answer to the question is usually when
they become sexually active. The other part of that is that we
also counsel them on the causes of cervical cancer which we know
now is the human papillomavirus and we have a vaccine for that.
IÄôs a good time at their first pap to talk to them about
that. Did you know Forest Park Medical Centers utilize a paging
system similar to those found in many restaurants today? The
paging system notifies patients family members as to their
location and status while undergoing surgery at Forest
Park. The system also allows the surgeon to contact the family
members to update them on their loved ones surgery. Thanks for
tuning in to another edition of one of the top medical centers
in all of Texas where iÄôs your destination to better
health. For more information on Forest Park Medical Center or
any of their doctors, logon to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com
and click on that Forest Park Medical Center tab. Got
questions or comments? Email us at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So
long everybody and we will see you next week.